I need to read more. I feel well-informed of current affairs from reading various news media, but I don’t read enough books. I used to love thumbing through books, especially historical fiction novels that had something to do with China and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Now I spend the majority of my day at work staring at a computer screen, only to come home to stare at a computer screen perusing through different food-related websites, my blog, and anything else of interest. And then there’s the television. I’m addicted to my television. How pathetic, right? I love my Bravo station. Real Housewives of Atlanta, Beverly Hills, New Jersey, New York, and Orange County? Yes, please!

The sad thing is that I can’t even remember the last time I picked up a book for leisure. I even bought myself and my partner a Kindle in hopes that it would encourage me to buy books on-the-fly to read, but instead, it sits on my nightstand collecting dust. At least my partner uses her Kindle and puts it to good use. She has finished three books in a matter of three days, and working on a new book as we speak, while I sit here lazily on the couch, blogging, watching a recorded show of The Voice, and perusing through Food Gawker and Tastespotting.

Maybe I should finish this blog post and pick up my Kindle :)

Any good book suggestions? What about Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto?

Butterfly the shrimps by slicing almost through lengthwise, while leaving the shell on shrimp. Devein the shrimp, if necessary. Toss with olive oil, juice of one lemon, and season with salt and pepper.

Place the lemons, corn, and shrimp on the grill. Grill the shrimp two minutes on each side, until the shells are pink and the shrimp opaque; the lemons for about one minute, or until there are charred grill marks to caramelize the sugars of the lemon; and the corn has also developed charred grill marks around the diameter of the corn.

Combine all of the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

When cool to handle, cut the kernels off the corn cob in a shallow bowl, and peel the shrimp. Arrange the lettuce on two plates or bowls [however, you like to serve your salad], layered with corn, black beans, avocado, and shrimp. Divide dressing between two plates. [You could toss the salad with the dressing instead. I think the salad looks “prettier” when arranged this way.]

Have you ever noticed how much your taste changes as you get older? I used to loathe cilantro, parsley, and carrots when I was younger. Loathe is a pretty strong, and that’s exactly how I felt about those *things*. The taste of cilantro used to make me gag. The thought of carrots would send me running into the other room. My Mom used to relate to me by telling me stories of how much she hated cilantro, too, when she was younger. But she’d follow the story with telling me how my taste would change as I matured, but I didn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth!

I ate my words. My Mom was completely right… “Mothers know best,” right? I love cilantro now. My affinity for it changed when I had my first tasting of Tom Kha Gai at my first Thai dining experience. It was love at first bite. However, it hasn’t been that easy for acquiring the tastes of parsley or carrots. I don’t recall when exactly I started to come around enjoying carrots, but it definitely has been in the recent years. I hate raw carrots, but I don’t mind stewed or roasted carrots.

Enjoying flat-leaf parsley has been a tougher challenge for me. Flat-leaf parsley has such an overwhelming flavor to begin with. I initially needed other stronger flavors to mask the taste of parsley, like basil pesto. This has since changed as we’ve been eating and cooking more Mediterranean foods that call for flat-leaf parsley. We recently dined at one of our favorite local Mediterranean restaurants and sampled their vegetarian Meze plate, which included tabbouleh. OMG, how could I have been missing this all these years?! I’ve become addicted. So much so that I made a LARGE batch a few days ago. We’ve had quinoa tabbouleh several days in a row for lunch AND dinner :)

This is our first weekend home in over a month, and while it’s good to be in the comfort of our own home; I was feeling somewhat nostalgic of our trip we took to the Russian River. It was the perfect weekend get-a-way, kind of trip, that wasn’t too far, but just far enough to relax, eat, and drink plenty. We kayaked eight miles down the Russian River, enjoying the company of one another and the scenery around us. We visited… oh who are we kidding, wine-tasted at some of the most beautiful vineyards/wineries around Sonoma county.

We also dined at some amazing restaurants, too. The one restaurant that we constantly reminisce about is Boon Eat + Drink in Guerneville, CA. It was such a sweet restaurant right off the one main street. The food was simple and seasonal; creative, but not over-the-top. It was, well, perfect. The one dish that still stands out to me the most was the arugula salad with roasted cauliflower, golden raisins, and toasted pine nuts tossed with this spicy, lemon dressing. It was just so fresh and crisp. The flavors of each ingredient complimented one another so well. It was brilliant.

I’ve been meaning to recreate this dish, and what not a better day than today while we reminisce of our trip. And I must say, my creation is pretty spot on, if not better. I’m just sayin’ :)

Toss cauliflower with olive oil, salt and pepper, to taste. Place onto a large baking sheet and roast in the oven for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and tender. Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, and crushed red pepper flakes until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a large bowl, toss together the arugula with the lemon dressing, toasted pine nuts, and golden raisins. Plate the salad, and garnish with shaved parmesan.

We had a small tasting of a similar dish at a backyard wedding we recently attended. The original was made with red and yellow beets, and butternut squash with a lemony vinaigrette with a hint of truffle oil. The salad was very tasty, but a little mushy from the butternut squash. So while I was consuming my large plate of food [It was, in fact, a very large plate of food… my eyes were bigger than my stomach. But what’s new?], a light bulb came on… roasted sweet potatoes. It would be the perfect substitution flavor- and texture-wise. And so what did I do two days after the wedding? Well, I recreated this dish, of course, and it was perfect.

Wrap each beet tightly in foil. [I usually like to double wrap mine in foil.] Drizzle the sweet potatoes with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the sweet potatoes in a singe layer on the baking sheet. Place the foil-wrapped beets on the same baking sheet. Roast for about 30 minutes, or until tender, but slightly crispy in the outside. Stir the sweet potatoes once or twice during roasting. [Watch the sweet potatoes closely, because they can go from perfectly roasted to imperfectly burnt.] Roast the beets for about an hour (or once you can poke a knife all the way through).

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the shallots, lemon, olive oil, and truffle oil. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside.

Remove the sweet potatoes firstly from oven, followed by the beets when they have cooked through, and allow to cool just enough to be easily handled. Once cooled, peel “skin” off the beets. [They’ll come off easily with just your hands… no need for a paring knife.] Slice beets into 1 inch cubes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the beets, sweet potatoes, and vinaigrette. Gently toss to combine all the ingredients. Divide onto small plates, sprinkle with chives, and drizzle with a little truffle oil, and enjoy!

We had the best wood-fire wild mushroom pizza drizzled with truffle oil during our vacation week of gluttony. It was to die for. I’ve been craving that pizza since, but because we are on our quest to lose the weight that we gained from our vacation, I wanted to cook something that involved mushrooms and truffle oil minus the carbs.

On our way back home from vacation, we stopped by the Korean market and got some beautiful oyster and enoki mushrooms. I was so excited to make my asparagus and oyster mushroom salad (the enoki mushrooms were reserved for miso soup tomorrow), but to my dismay, the oyster mushrooms started to grow fungus on itself and not in a good way :( I was so distraught. [Yes. Distraught. Haven’t you learned that I’m a bit of a drama queen, yet? :)] I really, really wanted that warm salad tonight with the truffle oil. Actually, I just really wanted the truffle oil. So fortunately I still had the enoki mushrooms and thought I’d give it a try instead, and sure enough it tasted just as good!

Toss asparagus and enoki mushrooms with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread onto a cookie sheet and roast for about 10 minutes until the mushrooms start to brown and the asparagus spears are tender. Remove from oven.

Toss the roasted asparagus and mushrooms with the lemon juice and arrange onto a platter. Shave the parmesan over the salad, and finish with a drizzle of truffle oil.

Grilled two cheese pizza with prosciutto, arugula, and lemon oil. Now that’s a mouthful of tasty goodness. Today was a lazy Sunday, and I didn’t feel like spending an entire afternoon cooking in the kitchen. I needed to catch up on my “So You Think You Can Dance” shows! It was four shows behind!

So luckily, we had all the ingredients for our favorite pizza, fired up the grill, and voila! Dinner was ready in 15 minutes. It was the perfect lazy meal. In fact, do you know how lazy dinner really was? We bought ready-made pizza crust (not dough, just crust) a few months ago and kept it on hand in the freezer for days like these. And now I’m sitting on my couch, typing this post, and catching up on my DVR’ed shows. Life is good :)

In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. Place arugula leaves into a large bowl, and dress it with the lemon vinaigrette. Toss to mix well. Set aside. [I know it may seem like a lot of arugula at this point, but it will wilt down during the cooking process.]

Roll out pizza dough according to your recipe or store bought instructions. Once the grill is hot (you can hold your hands an inch over the grates for no more than 2 or 3seconds), carefully place the pizza dough onto the grill. Grill for about two minutes on one side. The pizza dough will also immediately puff up. Flip the pizza dough onto the other side and grill for another two minutes. Remove from grill onto a cookie sheet with tongs. Close the lid of the grill to retain its heat. [If you are using a ready-made pizza crust, cook it for two minutes on each side to get the grill marks and flavor.]

Place slices of smoked mozzarella around top of the pizza crust. And then in this order, spread all of the arugula leaves around, layer with prosciutto slices, and top with crumbled goat cheese.

Place the cookie sheet onto the grill and close the lid. [This allows for the toppings to cook without burning the pizza crust.] Cook for about five minutes, or until the cheese has melted, the arugula has wilted, and the prosciutto has crisped up a little. Carefully remove the cookie sheet from the grill. Using tongs, slide pizza onto a cutting board. Squeeze some lemon juice over the pizza. Using a sharp knife or pizza slicer, slice the pizza and enjoy!

I laughed at my parents when they bought a small freezer for their garage. In fact, I thought they were silly for needing extra freezer space. I told them to just clean out their freezer and it’ll open up lots of space for them. Well, I ate my words recently. I seem to eat my words often :)

Our freezer in the house was filled to its capacity, from top to bottom. I even cleaned out the freezer and tossed out foods that we were no longer going to eat. But it was still full. We were shoving things into every little nook and cranny that we could find. So much so that one of our shelves toppled over because it was weighed down so heavily with meats/seafood. It was also getting to a point where we would have to take out all the items from one of the shelves just to find one item we needed. It was just ridiculous. I finally broke down. I, too, bought a small freezer for the garage. We moved all of our meats and seafoods to the extra freezer. It was liberating! We can actually see what’s in our freezer in the house, and pull things out without everything tumbling onto our toes!

I was embarrassed to tell my parents about the purchase, but sucked it up and told them. This time they laughed at me :)

In a food processor, combine the garlic, garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, water, and olive oil. Process until smooth. Add salt, starting at a half a teaspoon. Process. Adjust seasoning again with a half teaspoon of salt. Repeat until the seasoning is to your liking. [If you like it creamier, add a little more water. If you like it more citrusy, add a little more lemon juice.]

Spoon hummus into a serving dish. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on top of the hummus, and sprinkle with toasted pine nuts and chopped parsley.